Category: Masters of Photography

Hiroshi Sugimoto’s ‘Seascapes’ fascinate, puzzle, surprise and, finally, encourage further examination. I came across a major show by Sugimoto at Marian Goodman Gallery that celebrated 40 years last year. What appears at first sight to be very similar images of nothing more than a horizon with the upper half of the image occupied by sky…

Given the current state of the world with CO2 emissions concentration at 407.96 ppm (Maua Loa Observatory), over half of the world’s biodiversity lost in the last 40 years (Living Planet index declined 58% between 1970 and 2012 according to WWF Living Planet Report) and 8 mln tonnes of plastic waste entering the oceans every…

The fifth magnum opus by Luchino Visconti, Le Notti Bianche based on a short novel by Dostoevsky is undoubtedly an experience that is not easily forgotten. The original story written in Russian is taking place in St Petersburg during the ‘White Nights’ or a brief period of just over a months from the end of…

I am immensely pleased to have my celebrated image from Cartagena, Colombia published in the Guardian newspaper again: Cartagena by Dr Stanislav Shmelev. There is a good chance that it will be seen by some of the 6.97 million Guardian followers on Twitter. Carthagena, a coastal town on the Caribbean coast of Colombia is a…

My first encounter with Edward Burtinsky took place at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London where the screening of his documentary, ‘Watermark’, accompanied by a Q&A session, was organized a couple of years ago. In ‘Watermark’ Burtinsky tackles a very important topic of water, the origin of life, related to survival itself. His film…

To say that I was overwhelmed after seeing Sebastiao Salgado’s ‘Genesis’ exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London is to say nothing. I was simply blown away. My first encounter with Salgado’s work took place at the Somerset House in London, which showed some of Salgado’s Brazilian landscapes and Polka Galerie in Paris where…

How did I get to know that Steve McCurry was coming to London to sign copies of his new book on Afghanistan I cannot remember. What I can remember is how eager I was to meet the Magnum master of travel and portrait photography. So without hesitating I boarded a red double decker Oxford Tube…

The Black Maps album by David Maisel offers a life retrospective of this master environmental photographer covering a whole range of his projects, from Black Maps (1985), The Forest (1986), The Mining Project (1989), famous The Lake Project (2001-2002), Oblivion (2004), Terminal Mirage (2003-2005) and American Mine (2007). The visually striking works depicting the environmental…

Edward Burynsky’s book, ‘Manufactured Landscapes‘ published by Yale University Press is an important environmental photography album focused on the impact of our production and resource extraction activities on the Planet. Exploring the otherworldly entropic landscapes of copper and coal mines in the USA, urban waste collection sites, nickel tailings river in Canada and the ship-breaking…

This post will start a series of short articles paying tribute to some of the greatest environmental photographers this world has ever seen. We will start with one of the most known, Yann Arthus Bertrand. His book, ‘The Earth from the Air‘ and the accompanying exhibition, which initially started at Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris…

A brilliant documentary, ‘Light Keeps Me Company‘ featuring a celebrated cinematographer Sven Nykvist, directed by his son Carl-Gustaf is a sincere and detailed story of a master filmmaker, who collaborated with Ingmar Bergman on ‘Persona’ (1966) and many other films. Filled with warm and highly personal memoirs by Ingmar Bergman, Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Vittorio…

Rarely a photography book could be more exciting and captivating than ‘The Daybooks of Edward Weston“. A good copy is hard to find and they can be expensive, but all suffering is justified when you could connect and explore the world of one of the most renowned fine art photographers this world has seen. The…